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The Colossus of Maroussi

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 1,227 ratings · 102 reviews

The Colossus of Maroussi is an impressionist travelogue by Henry Miller, written in 1939 and first published in 1941 by Colt Press of San Francisco. As an impoverished writer in need of rejuvenation, Miller travelled to Greece at the invitation of his friend, the writer Lawrence Durrell. The text is inspired by the events that occurred. The text is ostensibly a portrait of...more

Paperback, 244 pages

Published January 17th 1975 by New Directions (first published 1941)

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Jan 09, 2008 Phil rated it 4 of 5 stars

This beautiful and nearly flawless travel memoir is marred by this unfortunate sentence on page 121: "On the way to the library, I made kaka in my pants." Wha? Here's this fabulous surreal narrative about Greece, and suddenly the narrator doesn't just shit himself, he "makes kaka?" Skip page 121.

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Apr 02, 2007 Loran rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nick, but he's already read it.

Miller finally departs from his shock-therapy style of incorporating the obscene in order to leap from the earth, but in no way does this diminish his poise, as he frolicks for a year in Greece with Lawrence Durrell. This work is as fanciful and full of poppycock as any other great piece by the man whose work I love so dearly I had some of it tatooed on my belly... but here the often under-praised sooth-sayer concerns himself essentially with human happiness and the folly of self-imposed sufferi...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Henry Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: permanent-collection

When he was not tackling sex and philosophy, Henry Miller traveled. The Colossus of Maroussi is a book of those later times, when he, an "American Savage", entered the world of peace, beauty, and most of all, simplicity he was longing for while living in America. Nothing could prepare him for what he encountered in Greece, not the streets of New York, nor the streets of Paris. Although enamored with France, Miller's passion for Europe goes way further in this book, which at times reads more like...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Rick Skwiot rated it 5 of 5 stars

Some critics call "The Colossus of Maroussi"--Henry Miller`s account of his trip to Greece on the eve of World War II--the greatest travel book ever. But, like all great travel books, it's much more than mere depiction of beautiful landscapes, missed connections, bad weather, and surly waiters--though Miller recounts those as well. Rather, the book stands as a compelling paean to the Greek spirit, to liberty, and to life--as well as a barbaric yawp prefiguring the coming cataclysm.

The Canadian c...more

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May 04, 2013 Shayda rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mystics, transcendentalists

Shelves: travel-and-cultural-commentary

Coming to this after reading Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West, what I notice most, oddly enough, is the lack of history. Whereas West built a big book out of her study of then-Yugoslavia, incorporating a lot of local and national history going back to the Byzantine era, Miller just goes to Greece, admitting that he knows very little about it and that he doesn't know much about Homer, either. What you get therefore are sun-drenched landscapes, noodling epip...more Coming to this after reading Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia by Rebecca West, what I notice most, oddly enough, is the lack of history. Whereas West built a big book out of her study of then-Yugoslavia, incorporating a lot of local and national history going back to the Byzantine era, Miller just goes to Greece, admitting that he knows very little about it and that he doesn't know much about Homer, either. What you get therefore are sun-drenched landscapes, noodling epiphanies about the need for individuals to resist what doesn't suit them, conversations with Greeks returned from the U.S. about where they lived and how they made their money, and doomsday references to the coming second world war. I can't deny that Miller has a way of sketching in the panoramic, but if you feel that facts count, as I tend to, then his impressionistic responses to modern towns and ancient ruins, along with a reflexive disgust for scholars and learning, will sometimes annoy. (For example, at one point, Miller just decides that a particular site reminds him of "the queens.") That said, Miller describes his visit to Greece at the start as being a dream, as changing him in a way he can't quite define, and if you pay attention to the elemental and astrological references, as well as the repetition of key words such as "light," you'll see that he's working through the interior landscape with Greece and his memories of France and the U.S. as reference points.

This is not really a travel narrative. Miller does name his destinations and provide, on occasion, framing details, but the views are so partial that you will rarely learn much. The description of the Armenian refugee quarter (where Miller visits, and is impressed by, a soothsayer) is one of the few sections that seems to have much historical specificity.

After this, I should probably read The Air-Conditioned Nightmare - it seems likely that it completes or elaborates some of the opinions sketched out here.(less)

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Jul 22, 2012 Ametista rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Fu un viaggio nella luce. La terra era illuminata dalla propria luce interna. A Micene ho camminato sui morti incandescenti; a Epidauro ho sentito un silenzio così intenso che per una frazione di secondo ho udito battere il grande cuore del mondo e ho compreso il significato del dolore e della sofferenza; a Tirinto sono rimasto nell'ombra dell'uomo ciclopico e ho sentito la vampa dell'occhio interiore che ora è diventato una ghiandola malaticcia; ad Argo tutta la pianura era una nebbia infuocat...more

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May 08, 2009 Michael sinkofcabbages rated it 5 of 5 stars

the greatest travel book ever written?? O.K, Invisible Cites is probably number one. But this is a close second. I know many people are not really into miller. He can get kind of tiring if read one after the other. But even if you dont care for Miller; you really should try this one. Those over-the-top rants he always has in his books are truely inspiring when applied to traveling. To see someone so in love with the spirit of a place is such a wonderful thing. But this is not one of those Miller...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Owen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: greece, american-lit

Henry Miller's reputation as a writer needs little verification from the likes of me. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to be able to confirm the abilities of a truly great author. This example of his work is in some ways a peculiar one since it was written during a turning point in modern history, namely the Second World War, and was inevitably a turning point in Miller's own life as well.

Henry Miller has not always had kind things to say about his native U. S. A. Here, in "The Colossus of Marouss...more

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Sep 22, 2009 Babis rated it 1 of 5 stars

This was the worst book I have read in months. Incoherent, the style disgusting, raving endlessly about everything and nothing at all. I had to skip pages all the time, there is no other way to read this book. I have heard he was quite a helpless writer and a pornographer, but I could not guess how really bad he actually is: he is unreadable.

As for Katsimbalis and his gang (the 30s generation) you won't get to learn a lot about them from this book - it simply does not deliver the goods. Very...more

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May 09, 2012 John David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-fiction

On the recommendation of his friend and fellow author Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller set out for Greece in 1939. After a decade of frenzied writing in which both “Tropic of Cancer “and “Tropic of Capricorn” were composed, Miller’s intention was really nothing more than to relax in preparation for a journey to Tibet in which he planned to, in a popular phrase Miller himself would have despised, “find himself.”

“Colossus of Maroussi” is pure prosopography, which isn’t of course to say that he does...more On the recommendation of his friend and fellow author Lawrence Durrell, Henry Miller set out for Greece in 1939. After a decade of frenzied writing in which both “Tropic of Cancer “and “Tropic of Capricorn” were composed, Miller’s intention was really nothing more than to relax in preparation for a journey to Tibet in which he planned to, in a popular phrase Miller himself would have despised, “find himself.”

“Colossus of Maroussi” is pure prosopography, which isn’t of course to say that he does not give flashing insight into the individual lives of others. In fact, the colossus of the title – a Greek poet by the name of George Katsimbalis – has a personality which sometimes threatens to marginalize Miller’s. We also meet as a minor character the poet George Seferis long before he became the first Greek to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

At one point, while Durrell and Miller are staring up into space, Durrell calls him a Rosicrucian. This is no lie. Not only does Miller have a preternatural affinity for the mystical and transcendent, but the various meditative bits of philosophy and courageously inventive speculative prose that dot the book are beautifully conceived, written in a kind of ecstatic encounter with the holy. Speaking of Rosicrucians…

“Saturn is the symbol of all omens and superstitions, the phony proof of divine entropy, phony because if it were true that the universe is running down Saturn would have melted away long ago. Saturn is as eternal as fear and irresolution, growing more milky, more cloudy, with each compromise, each capitulation. Timid souls cry for Saturn just as children are reputed to cry for Castoria. Saturn gives us only what we ask for, never an ounce extra. Saturn is the white hope of the white race which prattles endlessly about the wonders of nature and spends its time killing off the greatest wonder of all – MAN.”

To call this a travelogue is to tremendously devalue it. While its subject of the putative love of Greece and the Greek people, Miller’s approach is more reminiscent of Julian of Norwich’s “Revelations of Divine Love” or Thomas Merton’s “Seven Storey Mountain.” For him, Greece was a religious experience, and all the more precious because it was purely accidental. Miller was a mortal Antaeus whose powers seem like they would have been irrevocably sapped when he was finally compelled to bring himself back to the United States, something he only did because he saw the writing that Hitler was scrawling on the European political wall.
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Jun 29, 2010 Kim rated it 1 of 5 stars

I really thought Henry Miller was incredibly shallow in his views of other people! The writing itself is good, but the book does not inspire me to think much of Mr. Miller as a fellow human being.

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Nov 18, 2007 Liza Bolitzer rated it 2 of 5 stars

I always think that i will like travel books when i return from traveling, but that has never been the case, especially when they are written by self centered wankers like Henry Miller.

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Aug 03, 2010 Cj Lesueur rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A beautiful book, but it is not Miller's best, despite what some claim. It has some nice passages about Greece and the nobility of the human spirit etc. etc., but it lacks that feverish, almost mad, love of life that is rampant through out Miller's other works. It lacks that fire that ignites the read, engulfs them, in Miller's passion for life. And that is ultimately what made Miller a visionary storyteller. Topic of Cancer will always remain his best work through which he seamlessly blended th...more

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Oct 17, 2010 Sabra Embury rated it 3 of 5 stars

Driving through Big Sur from San Francisco to LA, I stopped by the Henry Miller Memorial Library and bought The Colossus of Maroussi; it was recommended by the shop-keep as "Miller's favorite work written by himself." Tropic of Cancer was already in my pile of to-read, road-trip-reading material after recommendations for its "dense, sexual force." So I figured: Why not a phase? I need to know more about Miller, and the subversive style which has made him a legend.

Colussus of Maroussi had me run...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Brandon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the only Henry Miller book I read that wouldn't be classified as pornography. Most of his books, nearly all autobiographical, contain detailed accounts of his many sexual escapades. Luckily, this one is different. His writing is beautiful. He mastered the non-fiction genre. At times, his thoughts soar through the heavens with truly enlightening spiritual insights. And at other times, he describes everyday events with true, vivid life. He's the master of real-life storytelling. When you r...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Jordan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hardly anyone I have ever met, unless they are a serious Henry Miller devotee or an avid reader of Greek travelogues, has heard of this book.

It's a wild ride, demonstrating both the liveliness of the author, but also how alive the Greece and Greeks he knew were. My memory of it has faded over the something like 30 years (!) since I read it, but I still have a strong impression of light, of dancing, of the castigation of Germans, Americans, and Britons in favor of a more alive southern European...more

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May 10, 2011 Beth rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookcrossing, memoir-non-fiction, travel

I'm so disappointed. What a hunk of junk. I don't know what this book is supposed to be, but a travel book, it is not. This is more like some self-centered, old-fashioned guy's philosophical blathering about a trip to Greece he took ages ago -- except it's not even interesting, nor is it funny, and it doesn't make a lick of sense. He goes on and on for paragraphs and paragraphs with no seeming point, and doesn't have anything interesting to say. The best thing I can say about this book is that t...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Ross Fattori rated it 4 of 5 stars

This rambling, discursive travelogue describes a brief holiday the author took to Greece in the months leading up to the Second World War.

Although much of The Colossus is imaginative, the object of Miller’s escapades is deeply rooted in Greece’s past. He visits Corfu, Crete, Corinth, Delphi, the Acropolis and other mythic places throughout the Greek Isles, and describes these hallowed grounds with humility and awe.

This is a wildly entertaining tale that belongs in the pantheon of great travel li...more

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Feb 14, 2011 Salomé Jashi added it

Shelves: women-men-erotica, on-hold-unfinished

Recommend to everyone interested in Greece. However, I was never into it, but this book is driving me to explore this country. Whatever Henry Miller describes in any book he has written, stirs me, motivates me, inspires me and makes me happy out of just reading him. Here's a paragraph from the beginning of the book:
'...'By God, yes, I like it,' I was saying to myself over and over as I stood at the rail taking in the movement and the hubbub. i leaned back and looked up at the sky. i had never s...more Recommend to everyone interested in Greece. However, I was never into it, but this book is driving me to explore this country. Whatever Henry Miller describes in any book he has written, stirs me, motivates me, inspires me and makes me happy out of just reading him. Here's a paragraph from the beginning of the book:
'...'By God, yes, I like it,' I was saying to myself over and over as I stood at the rail taking in the movement and the hubbub. i leaned back and looked up at the sky. i had never seen a sky like this before. It was magnificent. I felt completely detached from Europe. i had entered a new realm as a free man - everything had conjoined to make the experience unique and fructifying. Christ, I was happy. But for the first time n my life I was happy with the full consciousness of being happy. It's good to be just plain happy; it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how, in what way, because of what concatenation of events or circumstances, and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well. that is beyond happiness, that is bliss, and if you have any sense you ought to kill yourself on the spot and be done with it. And that's how I was - except that i didn't have the power or the courage to kill myself then and there. It was good, too, that I didn't do myself in because there were even greater moments to come, something beyond bliss even, something which if anyone had tried to describe to me I would probably not have believed. I didn't know then that i would one day stand and Mycenae, or at the Phaestos, or that i would wake up one morning and looking through a port hole see with my own eyes the place I had written about in a book, but which i never knew existed nor bore the same name as the one I had given it in my imagination. Marvellous things happen to one in Greece - marvellous good things which can happen to one nowhere else on earth. Somehow, almost as if He were nodding, Greece still remains under the protection of the Creator. Men may go about their puny, ineffectual bedevilment, even in Greece, but God's magic is still at work and, no matter what the race of man my do or try to do, Greece is still a sacred precinct - and my belief is it will remain so until the end of time.' (less)

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Aug 24, 2012 Rupert Owen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Every time I pick up a Henry Miller book through-out my life it is like meeting up with an old buddy for a long stroll and a gabber. One of the few authors I know well enough to be able to have an internal dialogue with as I’m reading. Just like a conversation over time The Colossus of Maroussi is alive with contradictions and Miller’s flare for embellishing each moment, his literary company is indeed after a few minutes like being “embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and traject...more Every time I pick up a Henry Miller book through-out my life it is like meeting up with an old buddy for a long stroll and a gabber. One of the few authors I know well enough to be able to have an internal dialogue with as I’m reading. Just like a conversation over time The Colossus of Maroussi is alive with contradictions and Miller’s flare for embellishing each moment, his literary company is indeed after a few minutes like being “embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and trajectory only to the dream which the practiced dreamer slips into like a bone into its socket”. In this book we discover Miller escaping the impending second world war by taking a holiday in Greece. Miller writes that it is his first real vacation in twenty years and that on it he would not do a stroke of work, yet The Colossus of Maroussi was born from that workless period. Miller absorbs everything and so a workless time for him is purely intention and not action. The vacation also allowed Miller some time with his fellow writing pal Lawrence Durrell author of many books, “The Black Book” being the one of greatest interest to me.

So Miller explores Greece, the people and the ancient municipalities and landscape. He is thinking of the Greek people all the time, and of civilisation itself. This being the core of the work, but it is also a reflective piece on humankind and the nature of industrialisation and war. Some wonderful Miller observations like “We have but to melt, to dissolve, to swim in the solution. We are soluble fish and the world is an aquarium” and “It’s good to be just plain happy; it’s a little better to know that you’re happy; but to understand that you’re happy and to know why and how, in what way, because of concatenation of events or circumstances, and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss, and if you have any sense you ought to kill yourself on the spot and be done with it”.

One interesting moment was Miller’s visit to a soothsayer who told him that he wouldn’t die but vanish into the light. The forecast and Miller’s last hours are eerily copulative as Miller went back to Paris in the 1930s in his mind and perhaps really did just vanish into the light; his mind anyway.

Colossus of Maroussi is also a ramble on the many characters Henry encounters, and the legendary Greek places that bore the early triumphs of contemporary thoughts. There are a few classic Henry moments pertaining to his perverse wit but it is a book of potential fear, singular emotion and enormous transition from a writer's inner and outer world.
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Jun 04, 2009 Christina rated it 3 of 5 stars

thus far i am unsure how i feel about this book. i have never read anything by Miller before except for "The Crucible", but that was in high school so it almost doesn't count.
It's nice to have the collective Greek ego stroked by non-greeks. after all, it's about time the rest of the world FINALLY realizes our greatness, understands our culture and matches beautiful words to the physical beauty of our landscape. some of the passages made me smile and made my heart fill with, um, pride? but,i mus...more

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Feb 07, 2009 Susie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I can’t believe it took me so long to finish this book; I started it in July in preparation for our trip to Italy & Greece. I was just picking it up here and there in between reading other things. The only other book I had ever tried to read by Henry Miller was Tropic of Cancer, when I was in high school; I found it . . . turgid . . . impenetrable even. I’m sure I was just too young for it, but ever since have felt like I just don’t get HM. But this book was fascinating and especially engagi...more I can’t believe it took me so long to finish this book; I started it in July in preparation for our trip to Italy & Greece. I was just picking it up here and there in between reading other things. The only other book I had ever tried to read by Henry Miller was Tropic of Cancer, when I was in high school; I found it . . . turgid . . . impenetrable even. I’m sure I was just too young for it, but ever since have felt like I just don’t get HM. But this book was fascinating and especially engaging since I was in Greece for part of the time I was reading it. It’s about his travels in Greece just before and during the early part of WWII. He became completely enamored of Greece, and explains why in this book. Things get a bit mystical—he goes completely off the deep end a few times—but it’s also entertaining and surprising (to me). It’s funny and self-deprecating. Much of what he says about war and politics sounds like someone just wrote it during the Bush administration.

I also never thought I’d be reading about the peace that passeth understanding in a HM book, but there it is. He also wrote a book called The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, which I haven’t read, but I believe is story of his travels around the USA, and an explanation of why he despises this country. It would seem to be the obverse of The Colossus of Maroussi. At the end of the book, he’s on his way back to the States; he draws strength from Greece to face the dragon of America. “The moment I stepped on the American boat which was to take me back to New York I felt that I was in another world. I was among the go-getters again, among the restless souls who, not knowing how to live their own life, wish to change the world for everybody. . . . I felt as though I were already back in New York: there was that clean, vacuous, anonymous atmosphere which I know so well and detest with all my heart.”

You don’t have to agree with him to be impressed by his strength of feeling, clarity, the way he could not possibly conceive of being ashamed or trying to soften how he feels for the sake of nicety, not apologizing for himself, his intelligence and individuality—can you tell I started to like the guy a little bit? Anyway, if you’ve been to Greece, the book is nice for reminiscing. If you haven’t: “People seem astounded and enthralled when I speak of the effect which this visit to Greece produced upon me. They say they envy me and that they wish they could one day go there themselves. Why don’t they? Because nobody can enjoy the experience he desires until he is ready for it. People seldom mean what they say. Any one who says he is burning to do something other than he is doing or to be somewhere else than he is is lying to himself. To desire is not merely to wish. To desire is to become that which one essentially is.”(less)

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Jul 28, 2008 Adam rated it 1 of 5 stars

Recommended to Adam by: Professor Ruf

Here I offer some of my insights on Miller's narrative based on what it contributes to the study or religious travel (not necessarily pilgrimage).

Anthropological research, when focused on studying other cultures, centered on the experiences of “fieldwork,” a task that led anthropologists to towns and villages in order to understand a “native” culture. (Clifford, 21-23) Despite these attempts, modern anthropologists have found flaws in this logic as a result of consistent interactions between gr...more Here I offer some of my insights on Miller's narrative based on what it contributes to the study or religious travel (not necessarily pilgrimage).

Anthropological research, when focused on studying other cultures, centered on the experiences of “fieldwork,” a task that led anthropologists to towns and villages in order to understand a “native” culture. (Clifford, 21-23) Despite these attempts, modern anthropologists have found flaws in this logic as a result of consistent interactions between groups of people. These interactions prevent a culture from being truly native as they are tainted by a culture with which they have had contact. Thus, anthropologist James Clifford argues that in order to study other cultures one must understand the “local/global historical encounters, co–productions, dominations, and resistances” through a lens focused “on hybrid, cosmopolitan experiences as much as on rooted, native ones.” (Clifford, 24) This approach permits the study of culture in its entirety, both as native and as interrupted by exterior cultures and can be found throughout travel writings such as Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi.
The basis for Clifford’s argument is that all cultures have interacted in some capacity with others. Fieldwork is a prime example. An anthropologist researching a culture does so by attempting to “blend in” to the town. However, this task is impossible. Despite attempting to “blend in,” he stands out due to his cultural differences in clothing, body language, and other actions while bringing many of his personal traditions, biases, and practices to his research. This often results in the mingling of cultures a phenomenon that does not simply occur with anthropologists, but rather it occurs in all cultures as a result of interactions with others and the larger world; the villages are not static. They may receive world news from the radio or a newspaper; they may partake in the arts of other cultures; they might trade with other tribes, states, or countries; they may interact with travelers from abroad or even a travelling member of their own culture. In each of these different ways, it is possible to see how a single culture might be exposed to one or more different cultures. Consequently, Clifford argues that we are not simply studying their own traditional lifestyle, but a lifestyle that has been influenced by the larger world; it is an experience of mixed origin that borrows from the larger world, not simply the local community. In this way, a culture is truly dynamic. It is this dynamic understanding of culture that Clifford refers to as a “hotel,” since culture “comes to resemble as much a site of travel encounters as of residence.” (Clifford, 25) It is this exact world that Henry Miller enters into during his travels to Greece.
Henry Miller’s travel narrative begins with an explanation of why he chose to travel to Greece and an account of his journey with a Turk, a Syrian, some Lebanese students, and an Argentine. (Miller, 3-7) These men coerce him into a conversation on America with which they were all enamored. “Progress was their obsession. More machines, more efficiency, more capital, more comforts-that was their whole talk.” (Miller, 6) Despite the far ranging cultures of origin, they were all fascinated with the American culture and lifestyle to which they had access. Even the Greek he meets on the ship has a desire to travel to America. (Miller, 7) From this early story, it is made known that Greece is influenced by many different cultures, evidence that the Greek culture, and maybe even the larger European culture, is not simply native. The American influence is further emphasized when Miller travels with Katsimbalis to Spetsai where they meet Mister John, the hotel proprietor, who describes the fruit stand he owned in New York City. Mr. John, a Greek by birth, left his home and travelled to America where he lived for many years before returning to Greece. (Miller, 64) It is clear from the conversation that his experience altered his understanding of his own culture which he then shared with others.
The integration of culture did not solely manifest itself in one’s outlook on life, but also infiltrated their homes. While in Athens, at the residence of Seferiades, Miller is treated to an evening of Jazz from Seferiades collection of Jazz music which consisted of Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and many other Americans. (Miller, 107) Later, when he arrives at the home of Mr. Tsoutsou, he enters “the sort of den which St. Jerome might have created for himself” with a “cross-cut of everything which had gone to make the culture of Europe.” (Miller, 131) For Mr. Tsoutsou, like Seferiades, they are attracted to various aspects of other cultures which they crave to integrate into their daily lives. Miller, rather unimpressed by their grasps for ulterior cultures, remarks “Soon one would have to come to a place like Crete to recover the evidence of a civilization which had disappeared.” (Miller, 131) Miller offers a strong critique of the merging of cultures, suggesting that like America, one can no longer find the “true” culture of “Europe proper” as they have strayed from the “native experiences” in favor of incorporating facets of many cultures, thus creating a “hybrid, cosmopolitan experience.”
Miller largely writes about these “hybrid, cosmopolitan experiences” which permeate his trip, but the paradox is that Miller does not want to find a “hybrid, cosmopolitan experience,” but rather the native Greek experience. While his “native experiences” are few, they always occur for him as moments of personal clarity. During a trip to Mycenae, Henry Miller has what amounts to a religious experience. In his mind, the experience is not rooted in other cultures, but simply that of the Ancient Greeks. Here he has found a connection to the past through “one of the navels of the human spirit.” (Miller, 86) Mycenae may be the birthplace of not only Greek culture, but all culture. This assessment is both emotional and fantasized. Miller is actually unsure about the experience, questioning “whether I was recalling things I had read as a child or whether I was taping the universal memory of the race.” (Miller, 86) For Miller, it was desirable to believe that he had taped a “universal memory” whereby he could experience the true Greek culture. Instead, it is more plausible that his life experiences led him to revere Mycenae for its holiness. Furthermore, Miller’s experience is not even shared by the Greeks around him as evidenced by the story about the little boy who was crying because his sister stole three drachmas. Miller is shocked that money even exists in such an awe-inspiring place as Mycenae. For Miller, this represents the world he left behind in New York City: “American culture.” Separation appears impossible in this place. (Miller, 87) Miller, desirous of holding onto his “native experience,” passes it off as “an hallucination” to which he responds “Let him stand there and weep…he didn’t belong, he was an anomaly.” (Miller, 87) While Miller wishes to look only at the “native experiences,” he finds it impossible to analyze Greece from this sole perspective.
In reality, the study of another culture requires one to utilize an approach which allows for the study of the culture in its entirety, both as “native” and as “hybrid, cosmopolitan.” As Clifford maintains, this research must be more like a hotel than a field since one must “rethink cultures as sites of dwelling and travel.” (Clifford, 31) These hotel interactions then do not necessarily mean that everyone must travel. Rather, the interactions between people create a greater knowledge base which provides an alternative understanding of travel. Miller himself takes part in this form of travel during a revelation that his travel experience has been far broader than travelling back and forth between Athens and Corfu. Miller says,
people came to me at the cafes and poured out their journeys to me; the captain was always returning from a new trajectory; Seferiades was always writing a new poem which went back deep into the past and forward as far as the seventh root race; Katsimbalis would take me on his monologues to Mt. Athos, to Pelion and Ossa, to Leonidion and Monemvasia; Durrel would set my mind whirling with Pythagorean adventures; a little Welshman, just back from Persia, would drag me over the high plateaus and deposit me in Samarkand. (Miller, 51-52)

He further explores Greece through the paintings of Ghika as well as other artists and writers. This realization is important in the mind of Clifford, because it demonstrates that this form of travel and the traditional version of travel is equally important since it allows everyone an opportunity to gain both a local and global sense. These types of events, according to Clifford do not take place in the fields, but rather in a “hotel lobby, urban café, ship, or bus.” (Clifford, 25) And it is certainly not a coincident that these are the same places where Miller is able to travel through the experiences of others. The world Miller experiences is one where “people leave home and return, enacting differently centered worlds, interconnected cosmopolitanisms.” (Clifford, 27-28) For the duration of his travels, Greece was his hotel where he could experience Greek culture, not simply as a “native experience,” but in its entirety, his believed “native experiences” coupled with “hybrid, cosmopolitan experiences.”

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Jun 23, 2008 Chris added it

Shelves: loving-greece

In his gem of an campus novel, 'changing places' (a genre that he and malcolm 'history man' bradbury all but invented in the early 1970s), david lodge introduces us to the hilarious game of 'humiliation'. one thinks of a work that YOU haven't read but you reckon everyone else has, and you win points for everyone who has indeed read it. in 'changing places', visiting Brit literatus Philip Swallow introduces the game at a dinner given by the dean of the literature faculty. At first, an ambitious t...more In his gem of an campus novel, 'changing places' (a genre that he and malcolm 'history man' bradbury all but invented in the early 1970s), david lodge introduces us to the hilarious game of 'humiliation'. one thinks of a work that YOU haven't read but you reckon everyone else has, and you win points for everyone who has indeed read it. in 'changing places', visiting Brit literatus Philip Swallow introduces the game at a dinner given by the dean of the literature faculty. At first, an ambitious thrusting don doesnt get it and pulls out all these obscure writers that no one else has read so of course he doesnt get any points. then the penny drops and he announces triumphantly ... Hamlet. he scoops the board of course but the confession is out and natch, how can the dean now even consider him for the next head of the engl lit dept.

right. i have never read henry Miller. not one. nada. shock horror.

Til i picked out colossus of M from the shelves here and i am captivated. the scales have dropped from my eyes in my adoration of larry durrell. (i can call him larry because he came to tea once and a swallow fell out of the nest and shortie L got a ladder and plonked it back in - and it lived and was not shoved out by its parents. also, mum has a postcard signed 'larry' trying to lure her to paris. mum said no, of course, but she kept the card.

Miller on greece, and bags on corfu, is brilliant. He's invited out to corfu by Durrell whose "Letters were marvelous, and yet a bit unreal to me. Durrell is a poet and his letters were poetic: they caused certain confusion in me, owing to the fact that the dream and the reality, the historical and mythological, were so artfully blended. Later I was to discover for myself that this confusion is real and not due entirely to the poetic faculty."

Miller makes friends with a lady and a splendid Greek 'character': "We immediately became firm friends. With Nicola I spoke a broken-down French; with Karamenaios a sort of cluck-cluck language made up largely of goodwill and a desire to understand one another."

Has it ever been better put? I read it and re-read it and it made me weep that my Greek is not better and got me off my backside and place phrase books in every loo so as to force my education.

Miller is that sort of muscular American writer that meets European culture and filters out the fey. Hemingway did that for Spain.

What 'Colossus' has done is to shove into middle ground perspective the excessive spell i was under by the alexandria quartet, and for that alone Miller is to be saluted

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May 12, 2008 Matthew rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Travelers

Recommended to Matthew by: Grandma Harriet

The Colossus of Maroussi is a travelogue recounting the author's travels through Greece before leaving Europe at the outbreak of World War II. In it he attempts to capture the Greek soul, which he portrays as a noble yet defeated remnant of classical antiquity. He vividly describes the ruins and islands that he visits and delves deeply into how he is personally affected by these places. He also paints a loving portrait of his friends and drinking companions with whom he gallivants around the cou...more The Colossus of Maroussi is a travelogue recounting the author's travels through Greece before leaving Europe at the outbreak of World War II. In it he attempts to capture the Greek soul, which he portrays as a noble yet defeated remnant of classical antiquity. He vividly describes the ruins and islands that he visits and delves deeply into how he is personally affected by these places. He also paints a loving portrait of his friends and drinking companions with whom he gallivants around the country, most notably Katsimbalis, to whom the book's title refers.
I got this book off my grandmother's bookshelf. She told me it was one of her favorite books, which surprised me at the time as the only one of Henry Miller's books I had read before was Tropic of Cancer, long banned in the United States as pornography. Somehow I couldn't imagine my sainted grandmother reading and enjoying anything as melancholy and depraved as Tropic of Cancer was.
After reading the book I understand. My grandmother loved Greece. As a rather elderly lady she went on a trip to Greece and the islands with some friends and was absolutely enamored of the country. I remember looking at pictures of her trip as a boy. Miller loved Greece as well, possibly as much as he hated America. In his descriptions you find a transcendental exuberance that his core cynicism was unable to temper. Take the following passage for example.
In Greece one has the conviction that genius is the norm, not mediocrity. No country has produced, in proportion to its numbers, as many geniuses as Greece. In one century alone this tiny nation gave to the world almost five hundred men of genius. Her art, which goes back fifty centuries, is eternal and incomparable. The landscape remains the most satisfactory, the most wondrous that our earth has to offer. The inhabitants of this little world lived in harmony with their natural surroundings, peopling them with gods who were real and with whom they lived in intimate communion. The Greek cosmos is the most eloquent illustration of the unity of thought and deed.
However the core cynicism is still there, festering under the surface of this apparently happy tourist wallowing in the ecstasies of stage one culture shock.
I knew, or believed rather, only that here at Knossus on an island which nowadays scarcely anybody ever thinks to visit there had been initiated some twenty-five or thirty centuries before the dawn of that blight called Christianity a way of life which makes everything that has happened since in this Western World seem pallid, sickly, ghost-ridden and doomed.
It seems to me that Miller makes one of the principle mistakes of the novice traveler. He idealizes the traditions and culture of the host country and cruelly dismisses the desire for modernity as ignorance. As if to say "these silly natives don't appreciate what they have and don't know what they are getting into." An example of this utter condescension follows:
Walking back to meet the bus I stopped at a little village to get a drink. The contrast between past and present was tremendous, as though the secret of life had been lost. The men who gathered around me took on the appearance of uncouth savages. They were friendly and hospitable, extraordinarily so, but by comparison with the Minoans they were like neglected domesticated animals.
All in all I enjoyed this book. It really made me want to move to the Greek Isles and learn to sail. His depictions of Greece are evocative and the nights spent on terraces drinking retcina and talking about literature sound magnificent. Sometimes it is easy to get lost in his multi-page bouts of surrealist free association. Anyone who has read and enjoyed Jack Kerouac will quickly note the influence that Miller had on him and the other Beats.
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Feb 28, 2008 Anthony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Not one of Miller's best, but the first authentic travel narrative that I've read of his (many more on the New Directions imprint). In his adventures around Greek, Miller elucidates what it means to be an American scornful of his country on the road in a land which he fails to understand (and even covers up his naive knowledge of Greek lore), but holds more love for. While this anti-Americanism is nothing new for him, in fact books like Tropic of Cancer and the Rosy Crucifixion Trilogy were rife...more

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Aug 29, 2012 Laura Yan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I have very mixed feelings about Henry Miller--some of his short form fiction and essays are brilliant, but when it comes to a rambling travelogue like this, I am less convinced. It is not so much a book about Greece as a book about Miller--and that's just dandy, Miller has a fascinating mind, a personality at once given to passion and judgment. His convictions are frantically, at times, beautifully written, but in other instances they simply become tiring, a never ending rampage and tribute to...more

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Apr 16, 2011 Oakley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Miller's enthusiasm is really contagious. This book is a travel log of the author's time in Greece right before all hell broke loose in WWII. It's an amazing picture that he paints and might be the next best thing to actually going there. He doesn't really know much about Greece so it's more like a travel guide to life and how to live in a state of grace. Sometimes his cultural comparisons are over generalized and advice unrealistic, but I believe in the book's spirit.

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May 19, 2012 Anja Weber rated it 5 of 5 stars

EXCELLENT BOOK FULL OF EMOTIONS, ARTISTIC OBSERVATION'S BUT WITH DEEP UNDERSTANDING FOR THE REAL NATURE OF GREECE AND HER HISTORICAL IN HERITAGE.Miller have it this so called deep sense for feeling of Saint places of Ancient's, to live under this impression like he has writed about ARGOS AND KING AGAMEMNON.HOW HE FELT THE REALITY OF PLACES WHERE IS LIGHT MIXED WITH HUMANS AND GOD'S..
EACH PAGE OF THIS BOOK IS MASTER'S DEPICTION OF ANCIENT GREECE..AS COULD BE..

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Jul 28, 2010 Bret Constantino rated it 3 of 5 stars

"I give this record of my journey not as a contribution to human knowledge, because my knowledge is small and of little account, but as a contribution to human experience."

This literary account of Miller's trip to Greece in 1939 seethes with passion and profundity, standing up to some of his best work. Its a travel memoir complemented with nihilist philosophic rants and impressionable characters who breath right off the page.

Recommended for anyone who has any interest in Greek culture and of co...more

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About Henry Miller

Henry Miller sought to reestablish the freedom to live without the conventional restraints of civilization. His books are potpourris of sexual description, quasi-philosophical speculation, reflection on literature and society, surrealistic imaginings, and autobiographical incident.

After living in Paris in the 1930s, he returned to the United States and settled in Big Sur, Calif. Miller's first tw...more

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Quotes from The Colossus of Maroussi

“The best stories I have heard were pointless, the best books those whose plot I can never remember, the best individuals those whom I never get anywhere with. Though it has been practised on me time and again I never cease to marvel how it happens that with certain individuals whom I know, within a few minutes after greeting them we are embarked on an endless voyage comparable in feeling and trajectory only to the deep middle dream which the practised dreamer slips into like a bone slips into its sockets” — 5 people liked it

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